1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an incubator, and particularly relates to a technology to enable environment control and sterilization control to be performed efficiently for an inside of a culture chamber.
2. Description of the Related Art
A carbon dioxide (CO2) incubator (hereinafter referred to as “incubator”) is known, which includes a means to supply a CO2 gas into a chamber containing culture and a sensor to detect density of the CO2 gas inside a culture chamber (chamber), and controls a supply amount of the CO2 gas according to the density of the CO2 gas.
In the case of changing culture after cultivation thereof using such an incubator, since the culture itself such as a cell and a microorganism, or a bacterium, a virus, etc., which are parasitic on the culture, adhere to an inner wall of the chamber or float in the chamber, it is necessary to perform sterilization processing for the inside of the chamber so as to avoid contamination of next culture caused by such matters.
With respect to a mechanism to sterilize the inside of the chamber, for example, Patent Document 1 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-154792) discloses the CO2 incubator including: a fan; an ozone generator; an ozone sensor that measures ozone density in a bypass provided long with the chamber; a bypass heater, provided separately from the heater, to heat the inside of the chamber; a first temperature sensor to measure a temperature inside the chamber; a second temperature sensor to measure a temperature in the bypass; a control unit; a water dish to enhance humidity control of air inside the chamber and sterilizing function of ozone gas; etc.
Further, Patent Document 2 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-154793) discloses a CO2 incubator including: a chamber to accommodate culture and a door to block an opening of the chamber, which can freely be opened or closed; a valve to take CO2 gas supplied from the outside into the chamber; a fan to circulate air inside the chamber; an ultraviolet lamp to emit ultraviolet rays, etc., and describes that it is provided with a sterilizing gas generating device in the chamber that generate gas having a sterilizing effect (hydrogen peroxide gas, ozone gas) when sterilization processing is performed for an inside of the chamber.
In order to properly maintain the humidity of the air inside the chamber using the water dish as described in Patent Document 1, it is necessary to perform control so that a proper amount of water is retained in the water dish. Thus, a user of the incubator is required to access the water dish disposed on the bottom face of the incubator to monitor the remaining amount of the water periodically. To properly control the humidity throughout the inside of the chamber, it is necessary to efficiently evaporate the water in the water dish to be spread throughout the inside of the chamber.
In Patent Document 2, the sterilization within the chamber is performed using the sterilizing gas generating device, the sterilizing gas generating device needs to be brought into the chamber, which causes the user to take trouble every time the sterilization processing is performed.
The present invention has been conceived in light of such problems and an object thereof is to provide an incubator capable of efficiently performing environment control and sterilization control inside a culture chamber.